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25 Things to Do in Kuala Lumpur

Kuala Lumpur is the capital of Malaysia, and despite the fact that it’s not very big, it certainly offers an unlimited amount of things to explore. I’ve put together a list of 25 items, some of which are the well-known, touristy sights, others are a bit off the beaten path and you can easily miss them if you don’t pay attention, and finally a few which we haven’t had a chance to check out because of several different reasons. I’ve also included a place that I don’t actually recommend to people, even though it’s quite well-known. Let’s see what are these!

1. Petronas Twin Towers

The 451.9m tall Petronas Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 until 2004, and they are still considered to be the tallest twin towers. The name comes from the Petronas national petroleum and oil company, as the construction of the twin towers was their initiative, and the whole Tower I. is occupied by their offices. In Tower II. several other companies operate, such as Bloomberg, IBM, Boeing, or Microsoft. At a height of 170m there is a 58m long steel bridge that connects the two towers and it’s very popular among tourists. We like to avoid crowds and having to queue for a long time, so we chose to climb the KL Towers instead. Just kidding. We took the lift.

The Petronas Twin Towers are strange. On one hand, these amazing buildings became the symbol of modern Malaysia and it’s difficult to imagine the skyline of the capital without them. On the other hand, when you are standing right next to the towers, you’ll soon realise that you can’t really feel the same tingling excitement you experienced when you saw the Eiffel tower for the first time. Nevertheless, they still managed to wind their way into people’s hearts.

Right next to the towers there is a big park full of palm trees, lakes and fountains. People who work in the surrounding offices can choose to have a break and enjoy a nice walk here, exhausted tourists have a chance to relax on one of the benches, while locals, who can’t cope with the unbearable heat, have the option to chase their naughty kids in the paddling pool.

The water of the fountains doesn’t only fall back onto the surface of the lakes, but occasionally it also ends up on the surrounding walkways and sprinkles the unsuspecting pedestrians. This could be seen as a feature in case someone is fed up with the tropical heat…

2. KL Tower

The KL Tower is the capital’s 421m tall telecommunication tower and it’s also considered to be the highest viewpoint open to the public. Apparently, the majority of the tourists don’t seem to know about this tower, which means that there are no queues and you don’t have to wait for hours in order to get to the observation deck. We timed our visit for a late afternoon, this way we could both see the city in daylight and enjoy the photo opportunities during the blue hour.

Considering the average price of everything in Asia, visiting the KL tower is not necessarily cheap, but in my opinion this stunning view is definitely worth the money (the ticket price is 94 ringgit, which is about £17).

3. Merdeka Square

The Merdeka square a.k.a Independence square is a very interesting and controversial part of the city. One day, after a long walk, we decided to take a rest here. When I looked around, I spotted a Tudor-style building standing on one side of the square and I started joking about the fact that after the English sockets everywhere on the walls now we bumped into an English-looking building. This started to feel suspicious, so I decided to dig the guidebook out from my backpack and read up about this. It turned out that between the 18th and 20th centuries this part of Malaysia was a British colony called British Malaya. It gained its independence back only in 1957, which wasn’t very long ago! This, of course, explains perfectly why Lord Meldrum from the show You Rang, M’Lord? constantly threatens his maid-fanatic younger brother with exiling him to the Malayan rubber plantation.

The massive rectangular grassy field in the middle of the square once hosted cricket matches and parades. The previously mentioned Tudor-style building was once the Royal Selangor Club and it’s still the city’s most prestigious private club. Unfortunately, in 1970 the original building was destroyed by a fire, which was soon followed by a flood, so the building we can see today is an authentic reproduction of the old club built in 1980. By the way, many people still refer to it as The Spotted Dog, and the rumour behind this nickname is the fact that one of the club’s former members used to own a Dalmatian.

Right next to the Royal Selangor Club there is the St. Mary’s Cathedral built in gothic style.

Közvetlenül a Royal Selangor Club mellett található a gótikus stílusú St. Mary’s katedrális.

The Sultan Abdul Samad Building built in 1897 presides on the other side of the square. Because of its very distinctive Mughal, Egyptian and Islamic style it’s very hard to believe that it was designed by Arthur Charles Alfred Norman, the same architect who designed the St. Mary’s Cathedral. Originally, the building served as the headquarters of colonial administration, but today it houses Malaysia’s High Court.

The interesting fact about the 100m high flagpole of Merdeka square is that on August 31, 1957 the Union Flag was finally lowered and replaced by the Malaysian flag. This was the day when Malaysia regained its independence.

This square, by the way, is a very popular meeting spot among young people, so one evening we decided to return, relax, and enjoy one of our favourite activities: people watching. It was Ramadan, and we noticed that lots of groups of friends are gathering around us. They put blankets and tablecloths on the floor, arranged the food and drinks in a nice way, sat down around their temporary dinner table and were chatting quietly without touching the food. Suddenly, the muezzin called to prayer. This lasted a few minutes, after which everyone became very cheerful, chatted loudly and started to eat. We were just sitting there quietly, watching the events around us. It was magical.

4. Batu Caves

Batu Caves is a series of limescale caves 13 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur. At the same time it’s one of the most important Hindu shrines and a place of pilgrimage in Malaysia. It was dedicated to Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war, and his gigantic golden statue is guarding the entrance to the temple. 272 stairs lead to the entrance of the largest cave, and in my opinion these stairs would not comply with the current English safety regulations. Each and every step is extremely high, there is no proper handrail to hold onto, and there is a huge mass of constantly flowing people. If someone loses their balance, thanks to the domino effect everyone would roll down in no time. The chaos is compounded by the fact that the local macaques learned how to beg for food, or even steal it. People know about this in advance, so they make sure they bring treats to these naughty animals and in return they expect to be able to take a few close-up photos of them. The monkeys steal and gobble everything edible: biscuits, nuts, crisps, chocolate. Of course, this makes them very thirsty, so after the feast they will try to get hold of some water. Seemingly successfully.

The caves would be stunning if they wouldn’t be so worn out and broken down by this incredible amount of impolite visitors. Unfortunately, the whole place was packed with rubbish: empty plastic bottles, bags, pieces of paper, cloths, and rotting fruit. This was very unusual for us and we didn’t understand how is it possible that no one seems to be bothered.

5. Perdana Botanical Garden

The Perdana Botanical Garden lies on the western edge of the city centre. It was established in the 19th century for the governing British elite, but today it’s Kuala Lumpur’s biggest and most visited park. It has a huge lake where boats can be hired, lots of walking trails, a butterfly park, an orchid garden, and several other things that parks usually have. The only problem – that I would be surprised of, if we wouldn’t have experienced it at other places as well – is, that it’s difficult to find the entrance. And then it’s difficult to find the exit. But after encountering the same situation even at the airport, we weren’t surprised anymore and we kept looking for a gate very persistently. This is how we met Rafaela, the 19 year old Portuguese girl, who was also unsuccessfully looking for something, but she couldn’t find it. In the end she gave up on that plan and stuck with us for the rest of the day.

6. KL Bird Park

The KL Bird Park lies next to the Perdana Botanical Garden, and it’s the world’s biggest public aviary. This 20.9 acre park is completely covered by a net, and houses more than 3000 birds representing more than 200 species. This sounds great, but if we think about it a bit more, it starts to be suspicious: if all these creatures have such a big space to fly around freely, how is it possible that visitors end up posing on the pictures with at least a dozen of birds sitting on their arms, shoulders and other body parts? After a bit of research we found lots of negative reviews about the park, where people reported that animals are not treated well here. Some birds are locked into smaller cages, while others have the end of their wings cut off such that they can’t fly away from people’s shoulders and they pose nicely on the paid photos. After reading all these reviews, we decided that we don’t want to support such a place, and we also think that taking a good photo of a bird that’s living in the wild is a much nicer sense of achievent. The only reason why I added this place to my list is the fact that it is very popular, so if someone decides to pay a visit despite the reasons presented above, they should at least know what to expect.

7. Sri Maha Mariamman Temple

The Sri Maha Mariamman Temple established in 1873 is Kuala Lumpur’s oldest Hindu temple. Built in South Indian style, the temple’s most outstanding feature is the 5-tiered tower above the gate called gopuram. This tower is decorated by statues of Hindu gods, gold and precious stones. Similarly to the Buddhist temples, visitors have to take their shoes off at the entrance if they wish to enter and look around.

8. Guan Di Temple

The Taoist Guan Di Temple built in 1888 is one of the most impressive Chinese temples in Kuala Lumpur. We didn’t even catch a glimpse of the building but we could already smell the strong scent of the incenses burnt in the temple. Because we are curious and love to explore, we decided to follow our noses. Local Chinese people love to visit this temple and its legendary 59kg copper Guan Dao. This Chinese pole weapon is believed to possess a special power to bless and protected the person who touches it. Some even believe that it has the force to turn a person’s luck around. We can neither confirm nor contradict these statements, because instead of weapon-touching we literally collapsed on one of the benches. This quiet and peaceful temple was a perfect refuge area from the heat and the crowd.

9. Sin Sze Si Ya Temple

The Sin Sze Si Ya Temple built in 1864 is Kuala Lumpur’s oldest Taoist temple. Its strange name comes from its patron deities Sin Sze Ya and Si Sze Ya. The temple’s walls are not parallel to the streets running next to it: it’s been built in an awkward angle, which is due to the fact that during the construction works the principles of feng shui were followed very strictly. Thanks to this, we had to experience our usual Malaysian finding-the-entrance ritual one more time, because it’s not obvious which hidden alley will lead to the door. Later we realised that we managed to find the back-entrance, but there is a main entrance as well. Similarly to the Guan Di Temple, this one is also full of burning incenses, but besides the traditional wand shaped ones stuck in the sand there are also huge spiral shaped ones hanging from the ceiling, and if you don’t pay attention, the ash can fall straight onto your head. Before major exams, many local Chinese students flock to Sin Sze Si Ya Temple to pray to Wenchang Dijun, the Taoist God of Culture and Literature, hoping that this way they will achieve better results.

10. Jalan Alor

(Photo by Will)

If you are into street food, the huge and crowded night-time food market on Jalan Alor is a compulsory thing to check out. We both are a bit fussy and picky with food, and we are also very cautious when it comes to our stomachs, so we weren’t brave enough to eat anything here, but we definitely enjoyed walking around and inspecting the unbelievably wide selection of delicacies.

11. Jalan Petaling

Jalan Petaling is Kuala Lumpur’s most famous and lively street market. During the day it’s full of stalls specialising in fake designer goods such as clothes, shoes, bags, watches, and pirated CDs and DVDs. In the evening it transforms into a night market and all the fake goods are replaced by an abundance of Indian, Malaysian and Chinese delicacies. The only thing I was hoping to buy here was a 7Eleven t-shirt, but despite the popularity of this shop around the area, I couldn’t find any.

12. Central Market

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org)

Going through my photos I had to realise that I didn’t take a single shot of the Central Market. The reason for this must have been the fact that when we were in the area, I was seriously distracted by the unbearable feeling of hunger. The only thing I could think of was finding a decent food place, and I completely forgot about my camera hanging on my neck. Anyway. This powder-blue Art Deco building dating from the 1930s was the city’s main fresh-produce market. As Kuala Lumpur started to experience a very rapid development, in the 70s the Central Market was almost sentenced to demolition. In the end this was successfully prevented by the Malaysian Heritage Society, after which the building was refurbished and transformed into a Cultural Bazaar. Since then the wide variety of arts and crafts shops located on the ground floor are constantly tempting the visitors to spend all their travel-money here, while the upper level of the market is full of restaurants and food courts offering traditional food. This discovery made me very happy and saved me from starvation.

13. Rumah Penghulu Abu Seman

The Rumah Penghulu Abu Seman is one of the oldest surviving traditional Malay houses. It was built between 1910 and 1930 in a small village in the norther part of the country. In 1996 it was rescued and relocated to Kuala Lumpur. Because it is surrounded by many trees and it blends into the environment very well, you have to pay attention not to walk by.

14. Foto Pak Tai

Foto Pak Tai is an old-fashioned photo studio in the heart of Chinatown. It has been open for 60 years during which it shot an unbelievable amount of portraits, family group photos and events. Today, this kind of activity is so unfashionable that apart from policemen who need an ID picture, no one really comes here anymore. When we visited Kuala Lumpur Foto Pak Tai was still open, but it is going to close down very soon.

15. Junk Book Store

Junk Book Store is Kuala Lumpur’s oldest second-hand bookshop. Despite the fact that the surface of the shop is quite small, it is so heavily packed with stuff, that sometimes you have to pass between the shelves sideways and very carefully. Everything is very cheap and you can find some serious gems here if you have time to look around patiently. We only came here because we were curious to see the place, but we didn’t actually plan to buy any books.

16. Rumah Api

(Source: http://rumahapi.weebly.com/)

The whole thing started with us going to a CD-DVD shop in one of the malls. Every time we travel, we try to discover some of the local music and films, because these form a massive part of the culture of a place. Obviously, I was curious to find out more about the local rock/metal selection. After spending some time between the shelves and not being able to spot anything, I timidly walked up to one of the guys at the counter and I asked him about the location of the metal discs. He stopped, looked at me very surprised, and after a few seconds he asked: “You mean the illegal underground music we are not allowed to sell?”. And this is how we found out that rock and metal is illegal in Malaysia, and bands who belong to this genre are not allowed to perform. I was disappointed and told Faez, my Malaysian friend about this experience. He suggested, that we should pay a visit to Rumah Api, an anarchist community, because they have a pub and punk bands constantly playing there. Unfortunately, this happened on our last evening in Kuala Lumpur, and when we realised that getting to Rumah Api from the Petronas Twin Towers would mean a two-hour bus ride, we gave up on this plan. I really regret not being able to see this place, so if you are reading this, you love that kind of music, you are in Kuala Lumpur and you would like to see something really non-touristy, then make sure you check it out.

17. Mimaland

(Source: https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3440913/all)

Mimaland was a massive and very famous theme park in the Gombak region, 25 kilometers from Kuala Lumpur. The park was opened in 1971 and functioned until 1994, when it had to be closed down because of the damages caused by a landslide. Since then it’s abandoned and it started to be reclaimed by nature. Of course, adventurous and courageous explorers keep coming to Mimaland in order to take some breathtaking photos and tempt other travelers to do the same. We made up our minds as well, but after spending some time researching the details we realised that the whole area is full of tigers, and we didn’t want to end up as premium cat food. If you still decide to give it a go, please be careful!

18. Highland Towers

(Source: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Highland_Towers_collapse)

When we gave up on visiting Mimaland, the next idea was to check out the abandoned Highland Towers instead. These consist of three 12-storey blocks built between 1977 and 1981 and were the homes of affluent middle-class families. In 1991 a new housing development project started on the hilltop behind the Highland Towers, and because of this all the trees were cut down. We all know very well what happens to a hill, when the soil is full of clay and the trees get cut down: slowly but surely it starts to slide. In 1993, as a result of a 10 day long monsoon rainfall, the muddy soil slid onto one of the blocks, the walls of which first started to crack, and shortly the whole building collapsed. This tragedy caused the deaths of 48 people and led to the complete evacuation of the remaining two blocks. Ironically, both look fine apart from the fact that they are a bit rundown. When we looked into the details of getting there, we found out that there are no tigers here, but the buildings are popular hide-outs for criminal gangs. We didn’t actually understand how can this work as a good hiding place if everyone knows about it, but we weren’t brave enough to actually risk it. Once again, if you decide to go, be careful!

19. Montana Shop

(Source: http://www.mtn-world.com)

Because we didn’t give up very easily on visiting some local abandoned places and we learned in Thailand that making friends with graffiti people means that they will show you some exciting spots, we decided to find a graffiti shop. The Monatana Shop seemed to be the coolest of all the Google search results, and it was also very close to our hotel, so one evening we decided to pay a visit. Unfortunately, because of the 5 day long Hari Raya celebrations at the end of Ramadan most places were closed, including the Montana Shop. But we still had a chance to admire all the graffiti on the surrounding walls and we met and had a nice long chat with an older Malaysian guy living in the area.

20. Berjaya Times Square

Berjaya Times Square is a 10-storey shopping mall located very close to our hotel. Because of this, we came here very often to buy some breakfast, dinner, beer, or just simply to cool down in the pleasant air-con environment. On time we decided to explore it a bit more thoroughly and go up as many floors as it’s possible. This is how we bumped into the massive theme park built within the shopping mall. The roller-coaster alone circulated around several floors, this way dosing the adrenaline into the people sitting on it. We’ve never seen anything like this before.

21. NU Sentral

(Source: http://hlarchitecture.net/nu-sentral-kl/)

Kuala Lumpur is full of shopping malls and all of them seem to be gigantic. NU Sentral, for example, is positioned very conveniently above the KL Sentral train station, and it’s very useful for all the arriving, leaving, waiting or loitering people. On the lower ground floor of the mall there is a shop called Country’s Tidbits & Candies Cottage that sells an unbelievable variety of dried fruit, biscuits and other delicacies. The secret – we learned from Rafaela, the Portuguese girl – is, that you can taste everything they sell, and this way you can fill you stomach without even buying anything. It’s useful info if you are hungry and you don’t have any ringgit on you. 😉

22. Suria KLCC

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org)

Suria KLCC is the shopping mall under the Petronas Twin Towers. Nothing notable happened here, but I had to add this to my list, because it’s an excellent place to enjoy the air-con and cool down a bit.

23. Pavilion KL Shopping

The Pavilion KL Shopping mall was the place where the above mentioned music-store incident happened. Oh, and it has a Promod shop, which is awesome, considering the fact that it’s my favourite clothing brand but they don’t have shops in England.

24. The Whisky Bar

(Source: http://thewhiskybarkl.com/)

Because Malaysia is a predominantly Muslim country, it’s not very obvious, where can a tired and thirsty tourist find some refreshing alcohol. I think, Malaysia doesn’t even produce alcoholic drinks at all, so everything you can buy here is imported: the beers, for example, all come from Thailand and India. One evening, when we were very thirsty and desperately trying to find a place in the downtown area, we bumped into the Whisky Bar. It seemed to be a very nice and friendly place, so we settled down, had some cold beer and peanuts, and watched the world go by.

25. Pisco Bar

(Source: http://www.piscobarkl.com/)

Pisco Bar is the last item on my Kuala Lumpur list purely because this is where we ended up spending the last evening of our big Malaysian trip. My friend, Faez suggested that we check it out, because this is one of his favourite places in the city. It’s a very friendly and trendy bar, serves traditional Peruvian and Spanish food, and the beer is slightly more expensive than at other places. If you are patient enough and you don’t fall under the table because of tiredness, you have a chance to witness how a quiet, candlelit pub turns into a mad party-place full of DJs.